


An argument for the wise use of blankets, or, Napoleon dislikes Canova's interpretation of him as Peacemaker

by oneinspats



Category: 19th Century CE RPF, Napoleonic Era RPF, Regency Era - Fandom
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, M/M, Woodford AU, as always if you all want the original first two in this world drop me a line over on tumblr, canova statue, or twitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 22:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17754992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneinspats/pseuds/oneinspats
Summary: For an anon on tumblr who requested the following: I have only one Napollington suggestion and it is anything including Napoleon being ridiculously angry about Arthur having that naked Napoleon statue in his house.





	An argument for the wise use of blankets, or, Napoleon dislikes Canova's interpretation of him as Peacemaker

It’s too athletic - Napoleon has tried to explain this. Repeatedly. It’s doesn’t serve it’s office, which is to convey the essence rather than the strict truth. Indeed, essence is a form of truth itself. It’s the interior truth as opposed to the exterior. 

This thing serves  _ neither.  _

‘I don’t know, I think it adds a certain something to the stairwell.’ Arthur sits in the library in a borrowed housecoat. Outside it’s snowing. 

‘It’s an embarrassment,’ Napoleon snaps. 

‘You’re the only one expressing that sentiment,’ Arthur replies primly. 

‘I am not!’ 

‘Yes you are.’ 

Napoleon glares. Arthur smiles. They are at an impasse. An impasse they have been at for a week, which is how long Arthur has been in Woodford. He blames it all on Kitty for it was she who let it be known to a certain irascible emperor that the infamous Canova statue ended up in their possession. Napoleon had asked: so you put it away in the back of the house with a sheet over it? 

He had been very furtive in his inquiry. 

Kitty, oblivious to the rising concern in her imperial guest, had said, ‘oh no, it’s in the front hall. The floorboards had to be reinforced.’ 

Despite Arthur’s annoyance at his wife for dropping him in it with Napoleon it  _ had  _ been worth it to see Bonaparte’s face when she said the floorboards had to be reinforced. It had been an expression Arthur had never seen and suspects he will never see again. A once in a lifetime opportunity that defies description. 

‘You know it was a gift, right?’ 

Napoleon declares he doesn’t care. He’s received many gifts over his life and doesn’t feel the need to display them all. 

‘A gift from the prince regent,’ Arthur clarifies. ‘It’s a bit difficult to hide those ones away when you’re not a fellow monarch.’ 

Napoleon stares at him. Says it could be from the Pope for all he cares his feelings would remain the same. It’s an unnecessary creation, that statue. Canova should be shot into the sun for giving him such grief. 

‘Josephine apparently liked it,’ Arthur continues. ‘From what I heard in Paris.’ 

‘Well--’

‘It’s not terrible.’ 

‘T’is.’ 

Napoleon makes a noise of discontent and proceeds to hide behind  _ The Times _ . Occasional mutterings about rude Englishmen and their crass manners and disingenuous friendship erupt over the pages. Arthur lets him stew. 

Oh yes the statue is a bit much, and certainly not to Arthur’s tastes, but he felt obliged to display it as the Prince Regent had been so keen. Perhaps the front hall had been a little on the nose. He shifts and begins a slow descent into a horizontal position on the settee. 

The clock on the fireplace mantel ticks. Snow hits window panes. Arthur won’t be leaving anytime soon in this weather. There is nothing to see outside but white and grey of shadowed objects in the near distance. Wind howls. The clock ticks. Napoleon turns a page of the paper. 

‘You know it has nothing to do with rubbing your nose in it,’ Arthur says at length. He’s lying flat hugging a pillow. His cold feet are shoved under a second pillow. 

‘My objection is purely aesthetic.’ 

‘I suppose I could see how it would rankle.’ 

Paper rustles.  

‘I can’t really move it,’ Arthur says after a polite pause. ‘It’s terribly cumbersome.’ 

‘Put a sheet over it.’ 

‘I’ll not put a sheet over a statue that is in my front hallway no matter how naked you are in it.’ 

A disgruntled noise. 

‘The prince regent would be very upset,’ Arthur continues. 

Napoleon snorts. 

‘Kitty would make my life a misery.’ 

Napoleon mutters something under his breath which Arthur believes wise to not inquire after. 

‘It’d be queer to do so. I host dinners and gatherings of some of the most important people in London society there.’ 

‘ _Jesus wept_ ,’ Napoleon says in Corsican. 

‘Oh calm down,’ Arthur replies in English.  

Napoleon huffs. Sitting up Arthur throws one of the pillows at Napoleon. It lands on the desk scattering papers. Napoleon lowers  _ The Times _ , looks at the pillow then up at Arthur. 

‘Uncalled for,’ he states. 

‘You’re throwing a tantrum over nothing.’ 

‘I’m doing no such thing.’ 

‘You’re making a bigger deal out of this than is strictly necessary.’ 

‘It’s not your naked statue that is placed in the entrance of the house of the man who landed you in permanent exile from home and family to be gawked at by all and sundry. Both me and the statue, I might add, for I’m also an exhibit. It’s not your reminder of your fall that’s being paraded around--’

‘Far too big to be paraded around--’

‘--in front of people who gleefully celebrated it before reinstating a tyrannical and dissolute monarch who will only bring harm to France. It’s not your reminder of the pleasure others take in your misery.’ 

Arthur raises an eyebrow, his expression conveying  _ really? _ Napoleon purses lips, pushes the pillow off the desk and returns behind the curtain of the newspaper. 

‘I did say it wasn’t done to spite you,’ Arthur clarifies. ‘I explained how it all came to be.’ 

‘That isn’t the point.’ 

‘Well, it’s not going anywhere. Do you know how big it is?’ 

Napoleon rustles the papers. Arthur takes this to mean  _ also not the point _ . 

‘I’m not going to apologize, if that is what you’re seeking.’ 

‘Why would I want that?’ It’s snapped. 

‘Because I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Arthur clarifies. ‘In case you’ve decided I have.’ 

‘Oh no,’ a mocking tone. ‘Nothing at all.’ 

Deciding he’s had enough sarcasm and scathing glares for one day Arthur takes up his book and declares that he will be in the billiard room should Napoleon decide to be civil. He closes the door perhaps too harshly and hears a loud complaint about  _ Englishmen.  _

  
  


It’s half four when the billiard room door pushes open and Napoleon enters coffee first. He has two cups so it’s a peace offering. The door is pushed shut with his foot. 

‘I brought coffee,’ Napoleon says. He places them both on the table. Arthur, seated with a thick blanket bundled up around him, doesn’t reply. ‘Now who’s being unreasonable? I blame it entirely on the weather. It makes veritable boars of us all. Come drink it before it goes cold.’ 

Quiet save for the padded feet of Bertrand and Montholon children running up and down the hall upstairs followed up the sound of a large ball rolling. Muted shrieks of laughter. 

‘At least someone is having a good time,’ Arthur says, giving and joining Napoleon. The blanket remains around his shoulders. ‘I didn’t pick a good room to retreat to.’ 

‘No, I thought the cold would force you to give in but then recalled you’re more acclimated to it than I.’ 

‘Napoleon.’ 

Napoleon perks up at the use of his given name. 

‘You have fires in the middle of August heat waves,’ Arthur continues dry as kindling. ‘You’re always cold.’ 

A smile, full, the kind that change weather. Of course this is how it ends, with Napoleon tugging his ear and calling him a  _ ridiculous man _ in English with rolled r’s and French vowels. Arthur asks if all is well now and Napoleon says that all is acceptable for the moment which is the best Arthur could hope for so he takes it. 

‘Am I allowed back in the library?’ He asks. 

‘You self-banished yourself, Wellesley.’ Napoleon taps his nose. ‘But yes, you’ll catch your death in here. We can’t have you wandering the halls with blanket around your shoulders like some aged king surveying his land.’ 

‘No we certainly can’t.’ 

‘We also can’t have you dying. The Arbuthnots would be upset.’ 

‘Just the Arbuthnots?’ 

Napoleon pushes him into the library closing the door behind them. With something like affection across his face he says, ‘don’t push it. I brought you coffee. I also am going to give you a present of a very large sheet. You know what you should do with it.’ 

They settle on the floor in front of the fire with pillows and too many blankets. Napoleon takes one and places it over Arthur’s head saying, ‘I’m demonstrating for you. So you know what you should do.’ 

From beneath the blanket Arthur mutters that he will see what he can do. Would Bonaparte kindly drop the subject now? It’s been a week. Napoleon says Bonaparte will see what he can do, pulls the blanket off and pats Arthur’s cheek declaring him a good sort of man. Even if he’s English and prone to letting too many people see unnecessarily athletic statues of the Emperor. Indeed Napoleon would say Arthur’s a very good sort of man. Arthur accepts it as he returns to his horizontal pose, feet shoved under Napoleon’s leg. 

‘I suppose you’re a good sort of man, too. Even if you’re French and prone to getting unnecessarily uppity about athletic statues.’ 

‘Would you have it any other way?’ 

Arthur allows himself to say that no, he probably wouldn’t putting them at a gentle impasse which is perhaps the best and most correct order of the world. 


End file.
